Music Review: Rainy-Day Requiem by Viva Voce

Three albums ago, when Kevin and Anita Robinson first rose to indie prominence with The Heat Can Melt Your Brain, the duo seemed easily categorized: fuzzy guitars and sweet harmonies. Then Get Yr Blood Sucked Out dropped, painting Viva Voce as psych-folk metalheads. Rose City is just the latest costume change. Arriving in a cloud of staccato drums and woozy guitar, the opener, “Devotion,” rumbles and moans like My Bloody Valentine. But between the six-string gloom, the core of the album reveals itself to be a sublimely sweet love letter to Portland. “I wanna go back where the rain won’t stop and the trees run wild like killer cops,” Anita sings on the catchy title track. The album, like a springtime forecast, is mostly cloudy with a chance of sunshine—pretty much a typical day in Viva Voce’s beloved hometown.